Brooding Over You
by nh09jrb
Summary: AU. Origins/Awakenings with Alistair & F!Cousland together with Awakenings cast. In the depths beneath Drake's Fall, Alistair is reunited with a dark and terrible shadow of his past. Confronted by the consequences of decisions that were taken from him, it becomes his responsibility to end the nightmare he had never imagined could exist.


_**A/N: **__This is the bastardisation of an idea from a fellow writer. It's very AU but I hope it will be a good read. Constructive criticism is welcome._

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Alistair had no love for travelling below surface. Bitter experience had taught him that nothing good could come from travelling underground, be it through the Deep Roads themselves or this Drake's Fall. But when the trail had led through the Dragonbone Wastelands and down below the surface there had been little option left except to follow it. The stone staircases had spiralled down and down and with each step he could feel the ghosts of memories swarm around him.

Velanna was also causing him no small amount of concern. She was more vulnerable than she knew and it was for that reason alone that he had considered ordering her to remain in the Wastelands while they continued on. But the hopeful look on her face at the thought of finally finding her loved one had dissuaded him. He could not deny that hope from another even when it had long since been denied him. So he had held his tongue and kept his fears to himself. But now as he felt the waves of anger radiating from her towards him, he wished he had insisted. Although it was unfair to expect her to understand his decision, there was little he could have done. He had heard false promises before and although he had no desire to condemn Seranni, neither could he allow an upsurge of darkspawn for the sake of one woman. Maker knew he had made enough deals with dark magics.

The sound of the sigh caught him off guard and Alistair made to turn before catching himself. No, there was nothing. He fixed his gaze ahead to where the Architect had indicated the Nest lay. All he wanted was to finish what the Architect had started and leave this forsaken place. He did not need additional distractions. But even as he thought the sentiment, the tingling sensation of fingers trailing up his neck caused him to tense. Alistair gritted his teeth, rolling his shoulders in an effort to shrug off the feeling.

He glanced at the Keeper who had at least consented to walk at his side, sensing as she did that his anxiety on her behalf was at least genuine. It had been a long time since he had felt so protective of another and yet he was aware it was not for the sake of the elven woman who walked beside him that he wished to defend her against being in this place.

The soft murmur of his name caused him to grind to a halt. He turned his head towards the sound of the voice only to find Nathaniel and Anders staring back as his gaze settled on them. Their grip tightened around their respective weapons and they too look around, convinced that Alistair had sensed something they had not. Behind him, he heard his name again at the same time he felt the tickle of a breath against his ear. He resisted spinning round, aware that his companions were beginning to react to his unease rather than the environment around them.

He forced himself to continue walking. The words which followed were spoken in a whisper across time and he recognised them as his own.

_I promise..._

Despite himself, Alistair flinched and the whisper drifted from his mind before the sentence could be finished. He had no need to hear that promise. He was reminded of it every day. But he knew what would now follow and he braced himself.

The sound of rock crashing down filled his ears as he felt the vibration travel through his body.

Alistair tried to shut out the surge of emotion which threatened to overwhelm him. He swallowed as the sense of sheer panic attempted to disarm his rational thinking. He reminded himself that the event had long since passed. There was nothing to be done. Maker, he should be able to control this by now but the memory was always agitated from the periphery of his mind whenever he was underground. He knew he would not be able to contain it much longer.

Even as the realisation crossed his mind, she appeared in front of him. He stifled the sharp intake of breath as she glanced over her shoulder as she strode ahead, strands of loose hair catching in her mouth. He watched as she reached up to flick them away and he heard her giggle, teasing him for stumbling while her roguish light-footed steps made easy work of the rubble ahead of them. _Warriors_, she taunted, _sword fodder_.

The image faded, dissolving into nothing. He blinked as he struggled to harness the grief which always accompanied the sight. The one which followed was worse.

She reappeared a little way ahead of him. Her face was contorted into a scowl and her body tensed as she glared at him. Her mouth moved and he supplied the words he knew by heart. _None of this is easy, Alistair. And __you__ don't make it any easier! _He cringed, guilt mingling with the grief. She only gave him a scornful look before turning on heel. He watched as she stomped away from him, fading into the air.

He rubbed at his eyes, willing himself to exile the slideshow into the depths of his mind. It was only a short-term measure which would result in weeks of nightmares but he could not afford to be preoccupied right now.

But it was too late. He stumbled to a stop once more as she materialised only inches in front of him. Her face was upturned to his and he felt the slight pressure from her hands as they rested against his chest plate. She was on tiptoes and he felt as her lips brushed the end of his nose. As she settled back on her feet, there was a glint in her eye. He felt the corners of his own mouth curve as he caught the meaning of the look.

Startled by the abrupt halt, all three companions looked towards Alistair. Velanna was the only one to recognise the rare expression of contentment and the faraway look in the Warden-Commander's eyes which always accompanied it. Usually, its appearance required the presence of several empty bottles of ale at his feet but something more potent that drink had triggered the look this time. It caused a sense of dread to wash over her as she realised what would follow if he was not jarred from it.

Despite the hurt and anger which coursed through her, Velanna forced herself to lay a hand on his arm as she addressed him with the only word she knew would receive a response. "_Falon_."

Alistair turned his head as if in a daze but at the sight of the elven woman in front of him, the expression faded and was replaced with the guarded one he habitually wore. He glanced down at her hand as it rested against his armour. Small, pale and so different from the ones he had just seen resting against his chest. He swallowed again but Velanna's interruption had succeeded in banishing the memory back to the edges of his waking consciousness. Alistair forced a small smile of acknowledgement in the direction of the Keeper.

She gave him a curt nod and removed her hand. His attention refocused, he led them at last into the final cavern where The Mother had built her nest. A mound of repugnant flesh lay at the centre of the cavern and as it sensed him moving closer, it heaved itself from its resting position with a screeching crackle.

It was not what he expected. _She _was not what he expected. It must have been the Architect's interference that had prevented her full deterioration into another of the sickening sights he had encountered so long ago in the Deep Roads near Orzammar. Horrific as _it_ had been, its grotesque transformation was so far removed from its initial form of a dwarven woman to prevent him from making any lasting connection between it and the women in his own life that it could have represented.

But this. She remained the embodiment of nature corrupted to its core. A creature stripped to its most basic function. And all with a face he could recognise as human. Tainted and decaying, she still retained much of the human appearance of her origins. A woman who had once been a daughter, sister and lover. A woman whose memory had long since been committed to the Maker high above even while far below her soul withered and her body mutated. A woman condemned.

"If it isn't the hero of the hour!"

He heard Velanna's exclamation even from her position some way behind him. "Creators preserve us! I have never seen such foulness."

The creature gave a screech of a cackle. "Am I not beautiful?"

As his stomach heaved, Alistair spat out the bile which burned his throat. His pity had caused him to falter but with the repulsive sound of the creature's voice echoing in his ears, his resolve strengthened. Far from being a tortured creature to be saved from her unfortunate fate, she was an abomination who had long since succumbed to the madness of the taint. Her humanity was but a mask and whatever beauty had once existed in the woman had long since been destroyed.

"Has the Grey Warden come now to slay the Mother, too? Will she join the Father in oblivion?"

"Yes," the strength of Alistair's voice reflected his newly revived conviction.

She cackled again. "Do you not wish to know how The Mother came to be?"

"No."

She flung her head back and her chattering shriek filled the cavern, echoing around them and setting his already frayed nerves on edge once more. "Once, beautiful music sang to us from the deep, called us near. We would search for that voice..."

"What voice?" Anders hissed at his companions.

"...But the Father, he was flawed. He heard only a twisted shadow of it. He hated what it did to us..."

"Urthemiel," Nathaniel muttered in the direction of the mage.

"...He said he wanted to free us. But all he brought us was silence. Oh, dreadful silence!..."

"Who?"

"... But now the Father is gone. The Mother can take her children deep into the earth and care for them, safe and sound."

At the sound of Anders' evident bewilderment, Alistair turned and gave the mage an exasperated look. "The Archdemon?"

"No. The Mother did not seek that song, not at first." Her integration of their conversation into her own was seamless. "No. It was another song. Beautiful."

"Another song?" Nathaniel repeated, taking a step closer to Alistair in an effort to prevent his comments being overheard. "Is this something we should be concerned about?"

Anders was still close enough to overhear the question and interjected. "Possibly. However she is also quite clearly insane."

"What other song?" Alistair forced himself to address the creature.

She stared down at the human in front of her. With a stab of revulsion, he was confronted by the bloodied slits of her eyes. It looked as though she had once attempted to claw them out and her contaminated existence had prevented the wounds from healing. "Oh, the Mother knows your ways. You will not let her be, no... not after what she's done."

"Tell me what song." He insisted through gritted teeth.

"You took away that beautiful music and left us with nothing. You stopped singing long before he did."

"You? Him? What is she talking about?" Anders spoke up again.

"Do you mean the Architect?" Alistair ignored the mage and questioned the creature, careful this time to keep his eyes averted from her face.

"The Father came later. After your song."

"My song?"

"In the dark. I listened for your song. I waited. But the song did not come. _You _did not come."

"Commander, you are conversing with a darkspawn. Did you truly expect straight answers?" Nathaniel hissed at him. "It is an abomination to be destroyed, nothing more."

"This is what your song has done," the creature shrieked as in her madness she found a source of anger Alistair was yet to understand. "I waited. So long. So long in the dark. And I all heard was _his_ song! Where was your song? Where were _you_?"

Alistair made to turn away from the creature to give the order to attack but his movement seemed to dispel the anger which had risen in her. She let out another scream of laughter, the sound of which caused him to tense as he resisted the urge to turn back to see why his action had caused such amusement.

"Your love..." A maniacal grin had spread across the creature's face as she knew the impact her words would have even before she said them. "... made me."

The words should not have held any meaning. They should have been mere sounds amid the rest of her ramblings. Yet the words seemed to bewitch their Warden-Commander. Half turned towards them as he was, he froze and they watched as a look of terror crept across his face. His eyes darted towards Velanna as if to confirm that he had heard correctly.

"Creators watch over us," she whispered as she reached out to brush Alistair's shoulder with her fingers. "_Lethallin_."

To hear Velanna address the _shemlen_ with such an endearment caused Anders and Nathaniel to take a step back from the sight in front of them. It was becoming clear there was more here that they did not understand.

Unnerved by the strange effect of the creature's ramblings on Alistair, Nathaniel lifted his bow and aimed at the creature. At the creaking sound of his bowstring, Velanna spun round and knocked his bow off target with the tip of her staff. "_No!_"

"Why _not_? What is going on?" he demanded of the elf, shooting a look at their still unresponsive Commander.

The elven woman ignored him and turned back to Alistair. With a low murmur, she leant forward and spoke into his ear. The stilted way he turned his head suggested that her words had only pierced so far into the living nightmare he appeared to be enduring. He blinked at the two men in front of him although the stricken expression which mingled with the terror did not reassure either that he truly saw them.

"Have you met this thing before?" Anders asked at last.

The viciousness of the snarl which greeted the question took all three aback. "She is not a _thing_!"

"Uh..." Anders eyed the creature which lay behind his Commander with a dubious look.

With an obvious effort, Alistair gathered up the fragments of his shattered mind. The words which followed seemed to cause him as much physical pain as they inflicted torment on his soul. "She was once a Grey Warden."

The colour drained from Nathaniel's face as he made the connection Anders still struggled with. There were few female Grey Wardens with whom Alistair would be familiar with. Still less who would provoke such a desperate reaction. And only one that could ever claim to have had the Warden-Commander's love.

Nathaniel forced himself to name the monster in front of them. "Elissa Cousland."


End file.
